Chapter 20 The Clue of the Velvet Mask by Carolyn Keene
Captured
Nancy immediately recognized the voice of the man who had given the command to stand still—Detective Ambrose. He had mistaken her for one of the thieves!
Ignoring the order, she kept feeling her way forward and groping for the elusive “old lady.” Nancy knew that she could not have moved far away. If only the lights would go on!
“She’ll head straight for that silver peacock,” Nancy reasoned. “So that’s where I’ll go.”
In the darkness, Nancy stumbled into the table on which it stood. At the same instant she realized the woman was there! Nancy’s arms encircled her, and she clung fast.
It seemed to Nancy that she had fastened onto a tigress, so difficult was it to maintain her grasp. The woman wrenched and clawed. But the young detective held on doggedly. When it seemed as if she could not keep her hold another instant, the lights suddenly went on again!
With a gasp of relief, Nancy glimpsed Detective Ambrose down the hall.
“Help me!” she pleaded. “Quick! Before this woman gets away!”
Astonished, the man beheld not only Nancy but her captive. A green-cloaked figure in a black velvet hooded mask.
“She has the peacock!” Nancy cried, as the prisoner vainly tried to hide the long-tailed silver bird beneath her coat.
“Hang on!” Detective Ambrose shouted, bounding forward.
He seized the masked woman and held her firmly while Nancy retrieved the valuable ornament. Then she ripped off the velvet hood. A dark, sullen-looking young woman glared at them defiantly.
Nancy had expected to expose the same Javanese masquerader she had encountered at the Hendricks’ party. Instead, she found the smartly dressed traveler who had assisted in George’s abduction.
“Trapped, my beauty!” gloated Detective Ambrose. “One less masked thief for the gang to work with! Where are the rest of ’em?”
The woman did not answer him. Instead, she cried out:
“You stupid dick, you can’t pin this on me!”
“Old-timer, eh?” he said, referring to the name she used for him.
She ignored his accusation. “Can’t you see that this is a frame-up?” she asked. “This girl jammed the mask down over my face just before the lights went on and pushed the peacock under my coat!”
Detective Ambrose merely laughed at the woman’s tirade. The accusation was too ridiculous to deserve a reply. He snapped a pair of handcuffs over her wrists.
“Come along, sister,” he said.
Meanwhile, Nancy had been digging into the space behind a near-by radiator. On the floor she found the white wig which the masquerader had been wearing.
Before she could tell the detective about it, Mrs. Dwight, accompanied by Mr. Lightner, came hastily down the hall. Both had been fearful of trouble when the lights went out.
“What happened?” Mr. Lightner demanded, while Mrs. Dwight looked as if she were about to faint.
“Well, I guess we got to give Miss Drew credit,” the detective said. “She caught the thief!”
“Very fine,” said Mr. Lightner. “What I want to know is how this woman got in here.”
Detective Ambrose looked a bit sheepish. “We checked all the invitations.”
“Did you admit an old lady with white hair?” Nancy questioned.
“Sure,” the detective admitted. “But her invitation was properly marked.”
Nancy held up the wig. “She was wearing this.”
Mrs. Dwight hastened to explain about the invitation to the woman she had never seen.
“It was this way,” she said apologetically. “Miss Wilkins, one of the invited guests, called me early this morning to ask if she could bring her elderly aunt and uncle. I told her ‘yes,’ but explained the necessity for having properly marked invitations.”
“You sent the extra ones?” Detective Ambrose demanded.
“Yes, by special messenger to the Hotel Claymore.”
“Lady, you never should have done it,” the detective said sternly.
“I marked the invitations myself,” Mrs. Dwight admitted. “It was a mistake, I realize now, but I know Miss Wilkins well. I had no reason to distrust her.”
“This woman ain’t nobody’s aunt,” Detective Ambrose declared. “What’s your name, sister?”
“Try to find out!” the prisoner retorted. “You’ll learn nothing from me.”
Mrs. Dwight at once sought Miss Wilkins among the guests. The young woman immediately denied knowing the prisoner. Furthermore, she asserted that she had no aunt nor uncle who had requested invitations.
“Just as I suspected,” declared Ambrose. “This woman is a smart cookie. She used Miss Wilkins’ name to get a marked invitation.”
During the questioning of the prisoner, plain-clothes men had been searching the grounds. Now one of them reported to the detective that none of the gang had been found.
“All the same, this woman wasn’t working alone!” Nancy insisted. “A man was with her. He was probably the ‘uncle.’ I talked to him. Oh, where did he go?”
Suddenly the group was startled by the unexpected appearance in the hallway of a disheveled figure. Ned Nickerson! His uniform was torn, his face bruised, and his hair mussed.
“Ned!” Nancy cried in dismay. “You’ve been in a fight!”
“And how! That fellow you assigned me to follow proved to be tougher than a whole squad of football players.”
“He got away?”
“Yes,” Ned admitted, disgusted by his failure. “I could have held him, but I had a choice between turning the lights on or letting him go. I thought that by switching them on I might stop a robbery up here.”
“And you did,” Nancy informed him. “If the lights hadn’t gone on just when they did, I’m sure this woman would have escaped.”
Ned told of the fight in the basement. His story was interrupted by Detective Ambrose.
“That’s funny! We had a man posted in the basement to watch the lights. What became of him?”
“He wasn’t around when I went down there,” Ned reported. “I could have used a little help.”
Alarmed, Detective Ambrose turned his prisoner over to a plain-clothes man and raced for the basement. Nancy, Ned, Mr. Lightner, and Mrs. Dwight followed him.
The detective entered every cellar room. The missing detective was not in sight and there was no sign of the man who had assailed Ned.
“This is mighty queer,” Ambrose muttered. “Mack wouldn’t leave his job.”
He opened the door of the cold-storage section and uttered a startled exclamation. On the floor, unconscious, lay the missing Mack.
Though apparently the man had not been struck on the head, it took the detective a long while to revive him. Gradually he recovered his senses and said that he had been attacked from the rear. Before he could fight off his assailant he had been drugged. Evidently it was some time before Ned’s arrival.
“That’s the Velvet Gang’s method,” Nancy said to Mrs. Dwight.
“It’s dreadful! Perfectly dreadful!” the woman said.
While waiting for the police car to arrive, Detective Ambrose again questioned the woman prisoner. “You may as well come clean and tell us how many are in the gang,” he urged.
“Gang?” The woman’s lips curled insolently. “I’m sure I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Your arrest is a mistake, I suppose?”
“It certainly is.”
“And your name is Mary Smith?”
“Edith Smith,” the woman corrected.
“You’re a cool number,” Detective Ambrose retorted. “So you’re willing to take the rap rather than squeal on the other members of your gang?”
“You’ll learn nothing from me,” the prisoner replied stubbornly. “So stop wasting words, and let me ride to the station in peace.”
After she had been taken away, both Mrs. Dwight and Mr. Lightner complimented Nancy for her quick thinking and prompt action. They also thanked Ned for his part in the affair. Thanks to the efficient work of the young couple, not a single valuable object had been stolen.
“I only wish I’d caught that man,” Ned said ruefully.
He and Nancy remained at the party another hour, thoroughly enjoying themselves as guests this time. But the mystery was the chief topic of conversation up to the moment they said good night.
“Well, we’ve made a start toward clipping the wings of that gang,” Ned declared in satisfaction. “Or, I should say, you have. So far I’ve only been in the background.”
“Mighty useful background tonight, Ned!” Nancy smiled, and then became grave. “As for finding the other members of the gang, I wonder.”
“What do you mean? You prevented a robbery tonight. You can do it again.”
“Maybe. Saturday is the test.”
“Why Saturday, Nancy?”
“It’s the final date that was marked on the lining of the hooded mask.”
“That’s so. But after tonight you don’t think the Velvet Gang will dare crash another party—at least not right away.”
“They’d dare anything, Ned. But what really bothers me is that, so far as I know, no important party is scheduled for that night.”
“Then you haven’t a single clue as to where something may happen?”
“Not one, Ned. Frankly, I’m worried. I’m afraid that the gang has set Saturday as the day for a big robbery. Oh, if I only knew some way to stop it!”
“Well, here’s an idea, Nancy.”